erik45

Youth intake 2031. In the preview it said we had only one position with A-grade talent (full-backs). We have 5-star PA talents for all the outfield positions. On top of that, we have 4 players who's CA is already 2,5 stars or more! Now that I'm looking this more closely, this is a very good intake, close to being my favourite so far. We got a right back with quite good physicals, a potentially new target man and a quick forward - all these were on my wish list! In addition, we also got a good central defender(s) and some interesting options to midfield. Interestingly there are much less different nationalities than before. My top three of the bunch: Stewart 31a, Allard 31n & Jordan 31p (the player with least perceived potential of the intake!). Here are their profiles: Stewart 31a is the best player of the intake. He'll be in the first XI in no time. He has good stamina and work rate, which are important in his positions and he isn't slow. He needs to get better defensively, the future will tell if he can. Allard 31n is so low in the "ranking" as he doesn't have 5 star potential. But he is tall, has quite good mental stats and he can tackle & head the ball - what's not to like? At the moment he's not the strongest nor does he have good defensive positioning stats, but he will be in the first team next season anyways. Jordan 31p has the lowest potential, but he has one unique quality that sets him as one of my favourites: his quickness! If he can develop it even further (and get better attacking mentals) he might become an effective lower division advanced forward. --- I think I sign all the players from the intake. Some of them have awful personalities, but... maybe I can change him? For the first time I tried to offer players only youth contracts (not non-contracts they've ask for) and to my surprise, it seems like it works! With youth contract they will be with us at least until June 2033. I think other teams can try to sign them, but then we get some small compensation. Here's our star with his new contract: Edit. Did I miss a future superstar?? Walcott 31k did something special in his U18 debut! If he develops nicely, he might become the first XI target man in a season or two.

February 2031. The funniest thing is that we kept our only clean sheet in the game where our goalie got injured in the first half and we didn't have another goalie on the bench so the tallest player was subbed in (and he even got one save in the game ). I'm very lost with the team and the tactics. I don't want to keep chopping and changing, but at the same time it feels there needs to be something radical happening so the team starts to perform again. We are still unlucky, but on top of that our level of playing has dropped quite a bit. Table. It seems very unlikely we will be in the playoffs this season. I just hope youth intake gives us a boost for the next season (and maybe some ideas how to play). Upcoming fixtures. Two games against teams in the relegation zone before three very difficult games. And then we end the month again against a relegation battling side.

January 2031. Hey, this is an okay month! Not great, but okay! If we had gotten a win against Warrington in a very even game, this would have been a very good month. We lost to a better side in the league cup, but I don't really care about that competition, it's all about the league. I have tried to simplify our tactics so we don't end up in situation where the opposition can get easy chances against us. I'm not a tactical mastermind, but I've never had any major issues with tactics in the earlier editions of game. In this game I have one issue and it is: How the **** do I defend cutbacks and low crosses???? It seems it's literally impossible to do anything if the opposition gets the ball near the goal line - doesn't matter if they are close to the goal or not. I know that in many of these situations my full-backs are alone 1vs1, but that doesn't explain why my centre-backs are totally lost when the cross/cutback comes... Table. We are one position worse than the month before, but still 6 points from playoffs. The tycoon side Stalybridge looks like they can actually get promoted (finally ). Upcoming fixtures. The only somewhat exciting game is the game against Buxton, who demolished us 4-0 in the reverse fixture. I'm looking for a revenge (and many wins)!

December 2030. Christmas didn't come early, it didn't come at all.. In the first game of the month,against Kidsgrove, we had 2 man advantage for almost 15 mins, but we couldn't equalise. In the last game against Trafford we were leading 2-0 until the 80th minute. Then GIbbons 30b conceded a penalty and got a yellow from it. Still leading 2-1. But minute later he took another yellow and in the 84th minute Trafford equalised. These two games tell the story: we do not have the luck on our side as we should be winning a fair amount of games. We do not have enough quality and consistency to fight for the promotion without some good luck - and we haven't had that yet. Table. Even after a quite disastrous month, we are "only" six points from the last playoff place. Youth intake preview. This is the worst preview so far, but it is still a 5-star intake. Having full-backs as the most promising position is really nice, my dream would be a physical beast as left or right back Upcoming fixtures. New year, same old opponents. We need to find our form to be able to at least challenge for the promotion spots. Warrington are the best side of these, other teams should be close to our level.

Almost all the players have signed a pre-contract so when they turn 17 they automatically switch from youth contract to non-contract. The contract negotiation happens when I sign them from the youth intake, I do nothing after that. Only the players with least potential want to have youth contract. But it would be worth trying to try give also better players youth contracts only, which I guess they see as worse option than the non-contract. I'm using @ivanwright26's (I don't know if this is the same person, but it's the same as his Steam handle) "England Level 10 League & Data Updates" which I got from Steam Workshop. It feels realistic enough, and has worked very well so far!

November 2030. Good month - really good! Hanley Town were better than us, but even in that game we were close of getting something out of it. We didn't concede for four games, that's just amazing! I forgot to take a screenshot of the league table, but we are 8th in the league, two points outside of playoff positions. Transfer out. We lost our best outfield player... after he got the non-contract on his 17th birthday, he stayed in the team for less than a month. He was our starting left back, and what made it even worse was that three weeks later we lost his backup as well. We've lost 9 players so far, but only four of them had some kind of role in the first team. Upcoming fixtures. No cup games this month (we are still in the league cup), but many difficult league games. Kidsgrove is the only side from the bottom half. We also face two of the leagues sides owned by tycoons, Atherton & Stalybridge who both have 1 m€/year wage budget We also get our youth intake preview. I'm hoping for quick and/or strong strikers and wing-backs with good physicals.

October 2030. Only one win in the league, that's not good. Feels like something just isn't clicking at the moment. I feel like we've been getting more red cards and conceding more penalties than before (but I haven't checked any data on it). Maybe things will get better if players get more minutes together? Cup games are good experience for the 2nd XI so I'm happy we still have one cup run going on. Table. We are very much a mid-table side at the moment. 12 points to the top is way too much at this point of the season, but fortunately we are just 4 points off the playoff places. Upcoming fixtures. We face the bottom two first before continuing in the league cup. After that we have much more difficult opponents, 7th, 6th & 10th. 10 points is what we are aiming for.

September 2030. Good in the FA Trophy, okay in the FA Cup and quite bad in the league. I'm bummed about the Wythenshawe loss as we were controlling the game from the beginning, but then in the 36th minute they scored against the run of play and in the 38th minute McCaffrey got a straight red. Even with 10 men we had an even game, but our hopes took a hit when they got a penalty in the 82th minute - and scored it. We scored straight after that but couldn't find the net again after that. Table. We are still in an okay position, but we need to turn tight games into wins if we want to get closer to the top. Upcoming fixtures. Now our focus starts to shift towards the league as we are out of the FA Cup. Winning at home, drawing away, that would be nice, wouldn't it?

August 2030. Best start to the season as far as I can remember. Wins in the FA Cup got more convincing each round. Over 2200 people came to watch us demolish Billingham Town! We've started quite well in the league also, with our 2nd XI getting a win against strong Avro side. Upcoming fixtures. More cup games and if we get through in them there will be a lot of rescheduling. Away against Warrington Town is going to be the trickiest league game. If we want to be in the promotion contest, we need to keep grinding points. In the FA Cup we visit Wythenshawe Town who are now a mid-table side in Vanarama North. They are clear favourites, but I wouldn't rule us out totally.

Season preview. We have been five seasons in the same division. Could sixth time be the charm? Our team is more balanced than ever before and especially the 2nd XI is better than before. Pre-season. Wins against weaker teams, losses against stronger (Guernsey being the exception proving the rule). Both the 1st and 2nd XI got minutes so they are ready for a new season! Media prediction. They are predicting us to play be in the mid-table positions - as they have predicted every season. We've been 8th, 4th, 4th, 12th, and 4th, so we've been higher up than predicted every year. Stalybridge Celtic is again a heavy favourite, but they just don't deliver. More about them later in the post. Squad analysis. Our squad's personality has "dropped" from professional to fairly professional to fairly loyal in the last two seasons. Key player is our starting GK and hot prospect the DLP for the 2nd XI, player profiles below. 1st XI. This year we don't have a standout star player, GK Spooner 29f maybe being close to being it. After many season, we have a "new" target man. Robert Jones has been holding his spot in the starting XI, but he's turning 35 next month so I wanted to start the transition in the summer. Ben Scott 27c is not the tallest (180 cm), but he has good first touch, heading and balance so maybe this will work? We have very, very young defensive line, Moore is 26, but others are 16, 16 and 17, goalie being also 17. It is a challenge, but I think they are the best players for their positions. 2nd XI. This XI will play all the mid-week fixtures and possibly some of the league cup and FA Trophy games. Usually I use the same GK for both XIs but as we got a good GK prospect from the latest intake, I put him in the 2nd XI. That's also a precaution as it is possible we can lose our 1st XI goalie any time. There's one new name in the team. It is Montserratian centre back Lee Dyer, who's a youth product of Fleetwood Town. He's 22, so he can be considered a seasoned professional in this team. @shd34_216_42, you commented earlier about the yearly salary budgets. I looked at the teams who have absurdly high budgets and I found a common theme: tycoons! Stalybrige Celtic: tycoon took over in Jan 2026 Atherton Laburnum Rovers: tycoon took over in Jun 2026 Avro: tycoon took over Feb 2030 Vauxhall Motors: tycoon took over in Jun 2026, and a new chairperson promotion from within in Jun 2029 I think it's weird that we have four (or maybe three, as I don't know if Vauxhall's new chairperson is from the same tycoon) tycoons in the league, especially as none of them have gotten promoted. In the screenshot below there are the annual salary budgets. We are not spending all of the wage budget because we can't offer part-time contracts. I think we could spend about 150k€ in salaries without it affecting our finances too much. Finances. We are in a strong position. I'm trying to save up so that if we some day get promoted, maybe we can start to offer part-time contracts. Upcoming fixtures. First competitive fixture is against Moulton in the FA Cup. They are on the same level of the footballing pyramid as us. Then couple of league games. Silsden and Avro are always tricky fixtures, I know nothing about Barnoldswick, and we got four points last season against Workington.

Transfer offer. I wanted to make a separate post about this as it's the first time we are offered anything for a player. As all players of 17 and above have a non-contract, only players who are 16 (or 15) the ones teams need to make a transfer offer. We have had dozens offers, but so far they've been 0€ offers with no clauses. If I've tried to add clauses, they've rejected the counter offer immediately. Fagan is about to turn seventeen later in the summer and I was certain he would be gone before the start of the new season, so I was eager to get offers from him. Bury was the only team interested (which is weird), but they made an actual offer. I renegotiated it as for me the only important thing is sell-on clause. I don't think Fagan 29a is going to be a superstar, but I could see a League 1 or even a Championship team chasing him in a few years. At that point the transfer could anything between 50k€ and 1m€, anyways much more than we can get right now. They were not happy with my first counter offer, but this one they accepted. I think I could've get a few thousand euros more, but I just focused on the sell-on clause. Our bank balance is more than good already. It was weird that his valuation is not much better than it was at Isle of Man. I think he's physicals are the hindering factor for being a proper good player, but I think he will have a decent pro career. The positive signal is Bury put him in the first team. That tells something how much they value him! Previous transfers. As Fagan 29a can possibly be the best product of our youth academy so far, I wanted to show some of the players who have left earlier. Here are the three who have actually gotten some playing time in higher divisions. Murphy 27d is close to getting to the first team in Grimsby as he made 12 appearances for them, starting six of those. Grimsby Town are a decent side in League 2, so that's quite impressive from Murphy 27d! McCrory 27a is from the same youth intake as Murphy 27d, but McCrory 27a is yet to make an impact outside of Isle of Man. He has one sub appearance for Rotherham in League 1, but mostly he has been playing for their youth sides. McCrory 27d also has youth international appearances for Irelands U19, where Fagan 29a is the starting striker. Jatta 28n has been one of my favourite players. He had a high CA when he came from the youth intake, but not the best PA. When he left our team, he was the best player in the team, although not the most consistent. In his first season with Utsiktens they got promoted and now he plays regularly in Superettan, the second highest level in Sweden. He's still just 18 and he has 9 appearances for Sweden U21s, so I think he will have a very good pro career! I don't think he will make it to the Sweden's national team, but he's also Gambian so maybe they will call him up later in his career?

Season review. 4th for the 3rd time in 4 seasons. Maybe next season we can win the league or at least get a home advantage to promotion playoffs? It was a weird season because the data suggests we played best football in the league during the autumn, but actually started to get results from February onwards when numbers suggested we were not that good anymore. xG table. This is here to show a tiny bit of data behind the league table. Mossley were the best team AND they got extremely lucky. We were about as good as our numbers suggested, but the teams around us were able to gain more points. We are yet to have a very "lucky" season, maybe next time? Best eleven. I show this because I felt it was very weird we have no players from the academy in the best XI. But when I thought about it, the reason for this is the best players don't stay that long in the team to make it to the best XI. I think Ben Scott 27c has the best chance of making it to the team as it looks like he's going to be a starting striker next season. Debutants. We had 12 players who made their debut this season. Spooner 29f is our best GK by far already and Hussain 30a, Gibbons 30b, Armstrong 30d and Young 29e are going to have a big role in the team. Transfers. The positive of the season was we were able to re-sign some of the players who had left the team earlier. Draper 27e is a back-up player, but Scott and Lonsdale are going to be in the first XI next season. In transfers out, we got lucky this season. We lost only one player during the season! And the big news is that we actually sold a player! More about that in a separate post. Expectations. We are going to need to just avoid relegation to make the board happy???? Yes, we lost our star striker, but rest of the team is a bit better than previously. I want to aim for the playoffs.

Playoff semi final. Northwich were the better team today. Not by much, as the xG is skewed by their penalty. When they missed it in the beginning of the second half I had a feeling we can still win this. They scored in the 81th minute and I thought the game is over. In the 90th minute we still got a chance... but we hit the bar, not once, not twice, but three times?!

April 2030. We had our biggest loss ever in the first game. Our second XI got blown away as Staveley scored with their first five shots on target. After that I was worried the team's morale might take a hit, but the players recovered excellently! As seen in the previous post, the last game was the decider. Was 0-0 enough? Table. It was! 73 points is only our third best points tally in the league, but 4th is the joint best position we have ever achieved. Playoff semifinal. Like two times before, we go to the playoffs without home advantage. Nortwich is always a tricky team and we have won only once away from home. I guess it will be an even game where we will get our chances to get a win from the game.

Last round. It can't get more exciting and nervous than this. We are in the best position, but it can all change. We face Vauxhall, who are just outside the playoff positions. Leek Town faces Stalybridge who are seventh. Even Atherton has a chance of making it when they face Mossley who have already gained record points for a season.

March 2030. (Almost) perfect month! We just smashed everyone out of the park! Stalybridge game was totally different, because there was nothing going on. Both teams had two chances, they scored both and we didn't. Fagan 29a was at international duty for the last two games, Scott 27c was more than a good cover for him Table. We are in a playoff spot, I repeat, we are in a playoff spot! It is still very thight, but this is as good position as we've had this season. Upcoming fixtures. Difficult month, where we need to be our best to keep ourselves in the playoffs. First two games should be wins (emphasis on the word "should"), but after those we have three really difficult games. I have a feeling that after the Leek Town game we know if we will be in the playoffs or not.

Youth intake 2030. A strong, strong bunch of players. There are no real standout stars in the intake, but 12 players with 5-star PA and all but one player with more than one star CA. Here's a more detailed list of the players: As one might notice, we have a lot of players from Isle of Man (and many with Irish 2nd nationality)! I'm also very happy with unusual 2nd nationality of Saint Lucia! I might sign all the players, I still need to think twice about signing Chaplow 30o and Hallin 30p as they have low potential and bad personalities (fickle actually isn't so bad). My favourites might be Hussain 30a, Gibbons 30b, Adams 30c and Parillon 30e. These players might get some minutes already this season, but if we can keep our current players in the team and fit, I will prefer them as they've already played together.

Yeah, basically all the youth players have signed a pre-agreement that they sign a non-contract when they turn 17. Only the players with lower potential continue with the youth contract after that point. So far this season has been much easier than the last one when looking at the players we've lost. We lost couple of first team players during the summer, but after that it has been very quiet in the transfer market. Fingers crossed that it will stay that way!

February 2030. It went almost to plan. Mossley was strong, but not 4-1 strong. We were better than Atherton, but they scored two and we didn't. I was really happy with our 2nd XI winning Padiham convincingly! Table. The gap between us and the playoff spots is one point bigger than the month before. I think we still have a realistic chance of achieving playoff, but we need to be at our best form for the rest of the season. Transfer in! We re-signed a former youth product of our academy. Scott 27c played 35 league games for us in the DLF (su) role before moving to Vanarama North team Southport. I think we will lose our star player Fagan 29a at the end of the season, maybe Scott 27c can be the replacement? He started his second spell in the club with a bang, scoring a hat-trick in his first start. Player development. Fagan 29a is the best player in the team and now there's an indicator how much potential he actually has. One our coaches makes an educated guess that Fagan 29a can be Vanarama National League striker in the future. My gut feeling is that he is to going be a good signing for a League 2 side in the future. Upcoming fixtures. Six games, only two at home. Our home form is much better than our away form when comparing to other sides in the league. However, I still feel that the most difficult game is against Avro who are on the same points as us in the league.

January 2030. Hanley Town showed us that there are better teams than us in the league. The rest of the games we should've won, but managed to do that only twice. We are not scoring enough, although we are creating chances quite consistently. The highlight of the month was the away win at Kidsgrove, where our 2nd XI did their job really well! Table. At the end of last month, we were 3 points from playoff spots, now we are 5 points adrift. 16 games left, we need to find ways to win even games (and maybe even find ways to win games we really should be winning ) Average ratings. It is interesting that we are not scoring too many goals, but our three 1st XI strikers have the highest average ratings in the league. I understand it for Fagan 29a, as he has been both scoring and assisting a lot, but Reddy and Jones have been far more inconsistent. Goalkeeper trouble? Our 1st team goalkeeper is turning 17 next month. There hasn't been any offer yet and I have my fingers crossed that there will be no offers this spring. Our second choice has 1 star CA. Upcoming fixtures. We lost to Trafford earlier in the season and Mossley are leading the league, so it's a really tough start to the month. We still need ~2 points/game to keep our playoff dreams alive. Winning home games and getting something from the Workington is the plan!

December 2029. I'm happy with this month. It's funny that we are actually playing worse than before, but we are getting results. We robbed Leek Town and Vauxhall game was a really even game where we happened to score two goals in the first 25 mins. Table. The last two wins this month meant that we are getting closer to the playoff spots. Mossley and Nortwich seem to be in the league of their own (and we should be there as well, but we are not), but the rest of the pack is very even. Upcoming fixtures. The new decade starts with a game against Hanley Town, who have been a difficult opposition for us in the past. That's not actually what I'm worried about. I'm worried about the transfer window, I feel teams are more active during it, even though our players can be signed almost throughout the year.

Youth intake preview. This is the best intake preview we've had so far! As our previous intakes have been really, really good, I don't know if I can start to expect even better intake this time???

Appearance record. Centre-back Craig Moore is our record holder. That's not really interesting, but I wanted to show this, because on the same day something else happened... The previous record holder Tom Thorpe left the club only hour after it was informed that he is no longer the record holder for most appearances! He is actually a quite good manager for this level!

November 2029. After a disaster month, we stabilised our course. If looking at each individual games, we were dominating all the other games, but not the 5-1 win which was a very even context. Against Avro we created 4.10 xG which is amazing number in an away game. Tables. We are still some way off from playoff spots, but we are playing well at the moment, so we have every chance of getting there. A star is born. Ger Fagan 29a is having a storming start to his career! We have had some players from Bermuda, Montserrat and Gibraltar who have played in their national teams or youth teams, but Fagan 29a is our first youth prospect who have done that. He scored a penalty in his first game - and in his third! He will turn 17 in the summer and I'm certain we will lose him almost immediately after that. Maybe we can try to sell him at the end of the season when he is still 16 so we can get a sell-on clause? New contract. I tried to get a new contract two months ago with no luck. But now the board came to me and offered a two-year contract. I negotiated a +1 option after promotion. Upcoming fixtures. Busy, busy month. In the midweek games our 2nd XI will get their chance to show if some of them can challenge for the spot in the 1st XI. If we want to get to the playoff spots, we need to get close to 2 pts/game every month.

October 2029. No comments. I feel the game is messing with me right now. We are playing really well, but no reward. We demolished the league leaders Mossley, but somehow only got a draw from it. We've been putting up good numbers consistently, but at the moment luck is not on our side. Table. We are still in the top half, but we need to start to win games. As seen from the xG table snippet, we are the best team in the league when it comes to xPts. It doesn't mean anything as long as we don't actually gain the points. Player development. Ger Fagan 29a is already a leading player... for the league above us! Transfer in. We made a signing mid-season, wow! And not just any signing, but Luke Draper 27e who played over 50 games for us before moving to Radcliffe in Vanarama North. He didn't stay there for long, neither he did at his next team Prestwich Hays. I noticed Draper 27e being a free agent and was surprised when he was willing to negotiate a contract. He will be a rotational option for now. Upcoming fixtures. A very basic month, I like it. Four games on four Saturdays, that's the real stuff. If we can play as well as the xPts suggests we are playing, we should be able to challenge for the win in all the games.